Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy

The comprehensive New York Times bestselling biography of Senator Ted Kennedy dives deeply into his political career, his shocking downfall, and his redemption from disappointing member of a grand dynasty to respected sage in the Senate.

No figure in American public life had such great expectations thrust upon him and fallen short of them so quickly. But Ted Kennedy, the gregarious, pudgy, and least academically successful of the Kennedy boys, became the most powerful senator for over forty years and the nation’s keeper of traditional liberalism.

As Peter S. Canellos and his team of reporters from The Boston Globe show in this intimate biography, Ted witnessed greater tragedy and suffered greater pressure than his siblings. He inherited a generation’s dreams and was expected to help confront his nation’s problems in order to build a fairer society. But political rivals turned his all-too-human failings into a condemnation of his liberal politics. As the presidency eluded his grasp, Kennedy was finally free to become his own man. He transformed himself into a symbol of wisdom and perseverance.

Perceptive and carefully reported, drawing from candid interviews with the Kennedy family, Last Lion captures magnificently the life, historic achievements, and personal redemption of Ted Kennedy, and offers a fresh assessment of his enduring legacy.

Peter S. Canellos is the author of The Great Dissenter: The Story of John Marshall Harlan, America’s Judicial Hero, and the editor of the bestselling Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy. He has been POLITICO’s executive editor, leading the newsroom during the 2016 presidential coverage; and the editorial page editor of The Boston Globe. He has also been a Pulitzer Prize finalist, a recipient of the American Society of Newspaper Editors award in 2011 for excellence in editorial writing along with the 2022 George Polk Award, Robin Toner Award, and News Leaders Association Batten Medal for his writing about the Supreme Court.